Two free ways into classical music in Paris’s 10th arrondissement

You do not need a subscription to a grand concert hall to try a classical evening in Paris. Sido&Co’s neighbourhood festival offers two particularly straightforward introductions later this month: a chamber-music evening at the 10th arrondissement town hall on Friday 27 November, and a solo cello-and-voice performance in a library the following afternoon.

Both are listed with free entry, subject to available space. They are part of the festival’s second edition, which brings musicians into local cultural spaces rather than keeping everything on a single stage. Official programme.

Friday: a night with Judith Chemla and a string ensemble

Une Nuit transfigurée begins at 19:00 on 27 November 2026 at the Mairie du 10e, 72 rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin. The hour-long programme brings together excerpts from Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Schönberg’s La Nuit transfigurée and Richard Strauss’s Morgen!.

Actress and singer Judith Chemla joins violinists Alexandra Soumm and Camille Théveneau, viola players Sarah Chenaf and Gatien Leray, and cellists Bruno Philippe and Adèle Théveneau. Camille Théveneau conceived the evening, which combines chamber music and theatre. Concert details.

• More low-cost culture: free documentary screenings in Paris libraries

Saturday: cello, voice and variations

At 16:00 on 28 November, Folie(s) takes place at Bibliothèque François-Villon, 81 boulevard de la Villette. Franco-Swedish cellist Iris Guémy Axelsson performs a solo programme combining cello and singing, with music by Marin Marais, Zoltán Kodály and Axelsson herself.

Its starting point is the folia, a repeating musical foundation that composers reshape through variations. That gives a newcomer something to listen for: the relationship between a recurring pattern and the different directions an artist takes it. The organiser explicitly lists this concert as free and without reservation. Folie(s).

Choose the session that suits you

The festival programme also lists a parent-and-child violin workshop at the same library at 11:00 on Saturday, with free entry while space is available. The town-hall and library events are public; the festival’s separate school and hospital sessions are not general-admission alternatives.

Check the organiser’s programme before setting out. Other performances earlier in the week request a voluntary contribution towards costs, so it is worth checking the individual listing rather than assuming every festival event has identical admission arrangements. Check the individual admission details.

Top photo: the Mairie du 10e arrondissement in Paris, 7 April 2018. Photo: Chabe01 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped and resized for display. Archive photograph of the venue, not a 2026 festival photograph.